


Sleepless in a Distant Dream

by dire_quail



Category: Terminator (Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Beta!Grace, Canadian Shack but they're in a bunker after the apocalypse hiding from killer robots, F/F, Fisting, Hurt/Comfort, I sure don't - Freeform, Mating Bites, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mild Gender Metaphoria, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Oral Sex, Pining, Soul Bond, Time Travel Shenanigans, Unconventional Soulbond Dynamics, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Fisting, and who knows where Dani falls?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:33:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24708385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dire_quail/pseuds/dire_quail
Summary: “Do you miss her?”Dani’s fingers fall short of the mark by several inches, landing on the outer curve of Grace’s shoulder. But there’s no mistaking her meaning, or the wistful note in her voice.Or: When she became part of the Augment program, part of Grace's evaluation was confirmation that she was a beta, not an alpha or omega who hadn't presented due to fallout from society collapsing. And normally, Grace has much bigger concerns than what other people do in their spare time.But lately, Grace has been having odd dreams and burning through her meds. She'd prefer to keep this to herself, but it all comes to a head when her and Dani are stuck sheltering from Legion forces.Or: ABO + time loops
Relationships: Grace Harper/Dani Ramos
Comments: 14
Kudos: 88
Collections: The First Annual Femslash Kink Exchange 2020





	Sleepless in a Distant Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [downjune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/downjune/gifts).



> Title from "Superhuman" by SLANDER, ft. Eric Leva
> 
> Which is ironic, because this was mostly written to the MiTiS remix of "Cold Skin", by Seven Lions

_“Do you miss her?”_

_Dani’s fingers fall short of the mark by several inches, landing on the outer curve of Grace’s shoulder. But there’s no mistaking her meaning, or the wistful note in her voice._

_And just knowing that, something slides into place that’s been hovering in tension this whole time, and Grace’s body heats from the inside out, a radiant, instantaneous surge, like the hair-trigger switch that brings her combat overlay online, turns her into_ more. _An overlay of touch, of memories on her skin—like the targeting grid her enhancements map onto the body, unrolling her for the eye that knows to see. Places Dani has found her way inside Grace, marked her, even where there’s no visible trace. Every monument glowing in that light._

_The bite mark Dani’s referring to is visible, though, and the brightest of them all. At her touch, her calling it out, it unfolds, like the memory’s stored there in the shallow scarring, closing its jaws on her all over again: The dig of teeth into her skin, the feeling spiking out ahead of it deeper into her body, more than pleasure. Grace’s whole body hums like a plucked string._

_Grace’s eyes clear, and she’s looking right into Dani’s, wide and soft with shock, her hand pulled back like Grace’s skin burns, hovering just out of reach. Her dilated pupils drink Grace in, read her with more than just vision. Her jaw tightens and Grace catches the slightest flare of her nostrils, and Grace knows what she’s taking in, in a frequency below what even Grace’s Augmented senses can perceive._

_And what the fuck do you say to a question like that, without sounding like an asshole? She stands in front of Dani with Dani’s mark on her skin, and Dani doesn’t even recognize her. But Grace’s body recognizes Dani. Seizes on the truth burned into it. Unlocks and opens for her, knees threatening to turn liquid. Calls out with a voice it shouldn’t have. But Dani has always made the impossible possible for her._

_“No.” Grace manages, sees Dani’s brow furrow, tries to find a lie that will work. Knows it won’t anyways, not with her. Wills herself to meet Dani’s gaze, to finish her sentence, to keep her voice steady. “I feel like she’s with me.”_

_God, of all the sappy lines she could pull out,_ that _one?_

_Dani’s look sharpens, and even if she doesn’t recognize Grace, there’s something like understanding growing on her face, certainty, different and familiar at the same time. A look Grace_ knows, _that she craves, untempered by war and weariness and the end of the world. It’s raw, plain to see, and so sharp Grace feels it like an edge pressed against her skin, sees it evolving in front of her eyes. Grace feels like a pane of glass under that gaze, the whole truth trembling on her tongue, if only Dani would look through. Trembling like the muscles in her inner thighs, her body turning adrenaline to arousal._

_Dani’s hand reverses course, reaches out towards Grace’s shoulder again. Her heart_ thuds _when Dani’s fingertips brush the curve of her shoulder, full inches away from the mark. She has to swallow to stop her breath from doing something conspicuous._

_“You knew me.” Dani’s not asking, and Grace’s knees want to give out, somewhere between relief and begging._

_“Yes.”_

_Grace can’t hold her breath; her enhancements are firing up, responding to her body’s heightened state. She tries to keep her breathing shallow, though, to calm her heart rate. There’s any number of ways this could still go, and Dani’s look is verging on something that could be anger, or maybe possessiveness, her chin lifting as she slides her fingers forward enough to wrap around Grace’s shoulder, thumb sliding over her collarbone. Heat fills Grace til she’s aching, climbs every filament of her enhanced muscles. Spreads out from Dani’s fingertips, up her spine. She’s so wet it almost hurts._

_Dani’s fingers tighten on her shoulder. “Turn around.”_

_Grace turns to face the mirror in the house’s guest bathroom. Looks down at her hands, planted on the counter. Leans her head forward, stretching the mark slightly._

_Dani’s fingers trace across the top of Grace’s shoulder blade, inspecting. Grace bites her lip. She’s dropped the shallow breathing, now, feeling the flush climbing her body, the conspicuously willing curve of her neck and shoulders. Want throbs molten between her legs, prickles cold and hot all over her back. The mark almost tangibly buzzes, untouched and incomplete, exposed._

_Dani’s fingertips finally brush over the mark, light, and Grace’s breath rushes out before she can stop it, gasps back in._

_“Why?” Is all Dani says._

_“You told me not to.” Grace manages. “Said— it’d be too much, early on.”_

_Those fingers still for a moment, then go back to tracing the mark. “What about what Sarah said?”_

_“She’s wrong.” One of Grace’s legs trembles ominously, and she drops to one knee, leaning her head against the counter, with its clean vinyl and warm incandescent light above and sunlight shining outside the house around them impossibly bright and clear. Dani’s whole hand rests against the base of her neck, now. “Dani.” She’s not sure if she’s apologizing, or begging, or warning—_

_Dani’s hand moves, suddenly, and then her fingers are digging into the top half-circle of the bite, fingertips and nails, and Grace’s whole body shudders—_

//

Grace jolts awake in her borrowed bunk, shoulder singing, cunt swollen and pulsing, heart racing, sweat dewing in every spot it can collect: Neck, collarbone, hollow of her hipbones, between her breasts. She drops back flat onto the mattress, gasping for breath. Her muscles feel unstrung and clumsy, limbs awkwardly balanced and heavy. She reaches for the still-humming spot at the back of her shoulder, somewhere around where it starts to curve into the line of her neck. The skin is smooth and, apart from her Augmentation scars, whole. It’s not even a graft. 

But the feeling still echoes, even after the nerves get real sensory input from her hand. A memory that never happened. A bond that can’t exist. 

And an orgasm that’s better than most of the ones she’s ever had while awake. 

She drifts for a few minutes poised on the edge between afterglow and crash, caught between the tug of satisfied, wrung-out sleep, the warmth of her sheets against her cooling skin, and the knowledge that her body needs something to rebalance it. Finally, though, she falls to the far side of the line, and her throat grows dry and thick to breathe through. She shoves herself up onto shaky forearms and lugs her metal bones upright so she can fumble one of her emergency doses and a canteen out of the mostly-empty footlocker. She takes a few gulps to wet her throat and collect herself, pulls back her shorts, uncaps the needle, and injects herself. She flicks the cap back into place and tosses it to the far side of the locker for disposal later. Perches shaky arms on her thighs and lets her head drop forward until her meds take effect and her muscles quiet. 

Now that she’s awake, the details of the dream echo in her head. But by now they’re familiar, one of over a dozen similar dreams she’s had over the last few weeks. The important detail is that they’re coming more and more frequently. Almost every time she manages to fall asleep. If she slept more, this might be a serious problem. 

She tallies up her emergency doses. They’ll give her more, no question. But they’re going to notice that she’s running through them faster than expected. That alone could get her pulled from the active roster for observation, until they determine what’s causing her to burn through her reserves so quickly. Or if it’s just… Grace burning through whatever’s left of her life at an accelerated rate. “Every Augment is one-of-a-kind” is less “feel special about yourself” and more “we have no idea what’s going to do you in.” 

Observation is _not_ something she wants, for so many reasons. 

She’s stopped wondering _why_ in private, at least. It’s not hard to figure out what her brain’s telling her. Though she doesn’t really know why it decided to make Dani _younger_ , or to make the two of them… whatever they were. As she is, Dani leaves her weak in the knees, and Grace knows excruciatingly well that part of the appeal _is_ Dani’s age. Her mentorship, and her leadership, and there’s always going to be a part of Grace that’s a teenager realizing with an unearthly chill that the woman who saved her life, who smiled and said her name like she’d been waiting to hear it, was a goddamn _general_. 

She’d found out what Dani’s actual rank was later. But by then it was too late. And the other part—

Of all the stupid things for her subconscious to get hung up on, though. There’s _always_ rumors about Dani, and Grace _always_ has to sit there and bite her tongue until she can’t anymore. Dani is this, Dani is that; she’s an alpha, she’s an omega, she’s an infiltrator, she’s crazy, she’s a genius, she’s a saint, _Shut the fuck up, asshole, it’s not like you’re ever gonna hit that._

So Grace is baffled by what her brain fed her, every time she wakes up. Because it’s just so… not relevant. Not that people _aren’t_ , and it’s technically not out of the question that Dani could be, but… even if she was, it wouldn’t be like _that_. Because it’s _not_ like that, anymore. Between radioactive fallout and the constant threat of starvation and the ever-present awareness that HKs could find you, or Legion could decide to finish the job they started on Judgement Day and just carpet-bomb the planet with nukes. No one’s body was meant to process all of that _and_ handle heats. 

And even if Dani is, it’s damn sure that Grace isn’t. They’d never have let her become an Augment in the first place, with the extra hormones and the steroids. The Resistance doctors confirmed it: No hidden chromosomal anomalies, no presentation masked by starvation or radiation. She’s as inert as a human can be. Or she was, before they filled her up with machine parts and more chemicals than she cares to think about. 

Now, it’s a miracle she doesn’t catch on fire when exposed to flame. 

But since when have dreams ever bothered with reality. 

The months after they brought her out of her medically-induced coma, where everything was new and wrong and Grace didn’t have time or energy or even much of a self left to want sex—that seems like a relief, compared to whatever slow fuse she’s burning through now. 

The remains of her afterglow and the muscle relaxants are hitting her, though, and she has a couple hours left til the return trip is due to start. Back at parity, Grace lets herself lay back down and shut her eyes. 

//

There’s no room for dreams to linger on duty. Not in the waking world; not if anyone wants to survive. Still, there’s a warmth that lingers under Grace’s skin, noticeable through her body armor, through her top-up dose before muster, and the pinging of her Augments as they pick up her anticipation and come online. It even shows through the bustle of an unfamiliar Resistance outpost. Thankfully, it’s not distracting, even when she notices it; more like one more overlay, sharpening and tuning her vision subtly. 

They’re bringing back intelligence and renewed relationships on this trip, mostly. Routine enough, but it took some negotiating from Dani, and Grace narrowly escaped getting traded. Not because Dani would’ve traded her—at least she doesn’t think so—but because the outpost’s commander was envious of Dani’s newer-model Augment and hell-bent on getting one for himself. He was pretty adamant, even approaching Grace after the officer’s conference when Dani wasn’t present. 

And Dani was as diplomatic and polite as usual, but Grace knows her well enough to see the faint disdain in her professional distance from him, her patient insistence. 

In the end, he’d resorted to giving Grace private sleeping quarters—vacant officer’s quarters—as a token of how “valued” her services would be here instead of the more dangerous and crowded base she’s at now. It had a desk and a dresser and everything. Swank. 

“Did you sleep well?” Dani asks as they’re loading into the truck, an amused note in her voice. Grace smirks. 

“I did. Felt a bit exposed, though. I miss my coffin.” She’d barely slept; just long enough to have that dream, and then after that, she was well and truly worn out enough to sleep for maybe another hour. She’d spent most of the day—they move at night—on watch, careful to avoid the base’s commander in case he decided he wanted to make another pitch to her. 

But it’s what she’s used to doing. Her job is to protect her team, and even in the relative safety of an outpost, Grace is still one of the most effective weapons the Resistance has.

Dani bites her lip on a laugh. “It was a good offer.” 

“Uh-huh. I know what I’m worth now. You’ve got some competition.” 

Dani puts a hand to her chest in pretend shock. “Captain Harper. Are you serving me _notice_?” 

“Yep. Expect to hear about this at my yearly review.” Haddrell used to joke about that from time to time. Grace finally convinced someone to explain the reference, but it’s so foreign to her post-Judgement Day world that it doesn’t land. Dani, though, is another story. She remembers hearing Dani’s laugh the first time he mentioned it, how much closer it seemed to bring them almost instantly. 

The jealousy that curled in her gut for an hour afterward. 

It gets a laugh out of Dani now, too. 

She’s not usually hyper-aware of the difference in height between them; there’s a lot that negates it, and anyways, all her height and muscle and even steel is only slightly hardier than any other human when placed between a Terminator and its target. 

But on this trip, she’s been aware of it the whole time: the distance between them, the angles her body covers Dani’s from, the pull between satisfied and unsettled when some new angle opens up. That same subtle warmth settles her nerves a little the closer they are, the more Dani’s covered. And with Dani’s laugh, that warmth she’s been carrying around next to her skin all day soaks into her bones, all the way to their reinforced core. 

And just like that, they’re back in step. 

They get in the truck, still bickering quietly, and Grace readies her enhancements to be their eyes and ears for the next four hours. 

Once they hit the road (which may be an overly generous use of the term) between this outpost and where they’ll need to dismount, one of the other grunts on this trip pulls a small metal case out of one pocket. He opens it and pulls out a rolled cigarette, lights it, and starts smoking out one of the unrolled windows. 

They’d had this discussion on the way over. All he’d had to say was “Road trippin’” and everyone had pretty much left him alone, even Dani. She’s like that; high enough up that she can let some things slide, and inclined to let people be nostalgic when she thinks it’s safe. 

And maybe it’s the lingering remnants of the dream, but the smoke brings back a memory from what feels like a lifetime ago. Like so much other noise around base, she’d filtered it out. But it comes back: 

_“They’ve got their nose. They don’t tend to flaunt it, but depending on who you ask, they can smell infiltrators as well as a canine. Don’t let ‘em hear you say that, though. All we’ve got are these—“ He taps his temple next to his eye. “—And these—“ Further back, above his ear. “—Cranked up to eleven.”_

_“Not all of us are similarly gifted, though. Smoke is a great way to deal with being in cramped quarters with a bunch of tone-deaf betas.”_

Huh. 

//

_“Grace.”_

_“Good, you’re coming around.”_

Grace blinks, eyes assaulted by the waking world around her. Grainy dark grey and indigo blurs, resolving into ever more defined and individuated dark blurs. Her mouth feels like a whole desert crammed itself in there, sand and dry but somehow, still, so humid it makes her temples burn and her throat ache. Turning her head is a truly monumental effort. 

Where…? 

She blinks. The dark blurs rising around… wherever the fuck they are… those are hills, and Grace and whoever she’s with are spilled into the space between them like water in a bowl. And that other big one is the sky. Blink. The rim of hills is covered in trees, and that sky is blissfully overcast, that good old Northwest low-hanging overcast. Like the hand of God giving them some kind of cover. 

“Grace.” 

That’s Dani’s voice. Grace starts to scramble to her feet, head turning towards the sound her voice echoes from, makes it to elbows and knees before her senses really come together—and her right arm buckles, pain radiating through her hand. She can’t see it clearly, but it feels like she stuck it in an industrial fan. She folds her arm against her chest and manages to get to her knees. 

As she does, her brain starts to remember why this is such a jarring difference from before. “Dani.” Her Augments come on-line all the way, and she’s on her feet, and Dani must have used one of her emergency doses— “Where is it?” She spins, looking for the HK, and she realizes whatever happened before she blacked out, it’s over, and only Dani and her are here, in the shadow of one of a zillion abandoned or bombed-out buildings, sheltering behind whatever can hide them from the heat-seeking eyes of any nearby sentinels. 

“Disabled.” Grace can’t tell if Dani’s mad about how that happened. But she slowed it down. That’s something, at least. “You didn’t manage to punch the radio array too, did you?” 

That’s not a good sign. Grace shakes her head. Her mouth is still cottony-dry. She needs water, soon. “The others?” 

“Split off. We’re going underground.” 

Grace nods, swaying slightly on her feet. She’s almost back to a hundred percent. 

Minus the fact that she’s going dead like an old battery. 

Something tickles her cheek. Her good hand comes up, touches slick; comes away dark and shining. “Fuck.” One side of her face is throbbing and hot. 

“Can you move?” 

“Yeah.” The inside of her throat tries to stick to itself. “I need water.” 

Dani nods; only Grace’s Augmented vision can catch it, in this light. She reaches down to one of her pockets and pulls out a canteen, hands it over to Grace. Dani’s put on her night vision goggles, a mask over the rest of her face. “Pull up a map?” 

Grace takes a healthy gulp, fighting the urge to drink all of it, loosen up the angry overheated tissue she can feel in her mouth and throat and… the entire inside of her face, it feels like. What she took steadies her, and she’s able to restrict herself to only another, smaller sip. They might need it later. She hands it back to Dani unthinking, and does as she’s asked, pulling up an old survey of the area on her HUD, looking for the safehouse they know is nearby. She finds it. “Got it. We’re not far.” 

_Not close enough,_ Grace knows they’re both thinking. And not far enough, either. 

They make their way to the tunnel entrance and down the ladder.

Belowground, it’s pitch-black, not a single light source. There’s the soft sound of condensation dripping at points along the tunnel, and Grace’s combat overlay is pinging, everything in grey and green. Beside her, Dani glows in infrared light, a beacon in all this. Her goggles give her mostly the same visual as Grace’s enhanced eyes. 

Non-Augments wouldn’t come down here unless they absolutely had to; even Resistance fighters. It’s the kind of place that gets a reputation for people disappearing and _things_ moving in the dark. But the radio signals buzzing in the air aboveground mostly don’t get down here. Infrared signatures might, and if it does, they’d stand out like the kind of sunny day it was yesterday before they headed out. But they’re going to wrap themselves in concrete to try to deal with that. 

And now, Grace is part- whatever might be waiting in the dark. 

The water seems to have helped her brain start reconstructing what happened a little closer to when she passed out, although she doesn’t really have the bandwidth to think about it at the moment—just getting her and Dani safely through the dark to the safehouse. Still, as things come back, different parts of her body start to hurt. Some more than others. 

The HK blew up the truck. That part Grace remembers pretty clearly. After that… 

She remembers charging the HK. Not her brightest move. But it worked as a diversion—a flashier, more aggressive target to take its attention away from Dani and the others. That was the reason for whatever happened to her face: Concrete and debris from a blast almost next to her head. There was almost nothing she could shoot at it from a distance that would actually damage it. And sooner or later, she’d slow down. 

She _could_ get up close and personal, though. 

She remembers hearing her name, faintly—the only reason why the voice caught her ear, at that distance—and then some swears. But she was already halfway up the chassis of the HK, only stopping to plunge her hand into any exposed parts at the joints, searching for something soft. Or maybe, if it was dumb enough and its cannons turned far enough, it might try to blast her and hit itself. Wouldn’t help her, but it’d put the HK out of commission, too. For better or worse, it was not that dumb, or that flexible. 

In hindsight, they really should’ve brought more grenades. 

She hit paydirt at the eyes. 

For an AI determined to wipe humanity out, they built a lot of their machines with a very human design. Even their tanks. But after ten years fighting alongside Dani, she’s had it hammered into her head: _Legion is humanity’s child._

She supposes killing your parents is a feature of a lot of human mythology, too. What she remembers. 

The HK, dumb as shit and unable to target effectively with Grace essentially acting like a grain of sand in its eye, stopped firing. Jerked back, wheeled around. Almost threw her a couple times. But they’re big, and slow, and Grace managed to crack the panel over the visual array with the butt of her rifle. 

Then it jerked around again when she was winding up for another strike—maybe not as dumb as it was slow—and she almost lost her grip on her handhold. She *did* lose her grip on her rifle. 

So she put her fist into the HK’s targeting array and flailed around a little. 

_That_ gave her an unpleasant shock. It was able to throw her then. But at that point, it couldn’t target effectively. 

Unfortunately, that was when Grace blacked out. She’s not sure how it didn’t run her over. 

Her eyes slide back over to Dani. 

She’s an _awful_ lot of dead weight for one person to drag. But she doesn’t know when everyone split up. 

She redirects her gaze forward again, ahead of them. It’s a long walk to the safehouse, adrenaline pounding, every muscle tensed. 

Dani stays with her the whole way. 

//

The safehouse is hardly a house. It’s more accurate to say it’s a one-room bunker with a bathroom. The air is clean when Grace opens the door, still circulating, but it’s also _cold_. And the safehouse _feels_ deserted, like they’re hiding in someone’s abandoned home—which, for all Grace knows, it might’ve been at one point. 

The two of them clear the safehouse wordlessly. Grace scans for any electronics, any signals. Nothing. Dani pulls back a panel in the wall and rummages around, coming up with an IR lantern, part-heat lamp, part-lamp lamp. When she turns it on, it bathes the room in a murky golden glow—brighter to Grace’s heat-sensing enhancements as it is her regular eyes. Then, Dani slides her mask up and off. 

Her face is flushed, more adrenaline than exertion after their walk through the tunnels. There’s grit and soot from the fight, and a cut across one cheek, blood smeared from it by the mask. Not too far above that, a scar starts at her temple—from the ambush that led to Grace’s Augmentation. It runs from there to the back of her head, almost, beneath her hair. A lot of it came back grey over the scar. There’s a dark, charred streak on the upper part of one of her sleeves. Blood and other fluid stains the fabric, too. 

But she’s alive. Alive and more or less whole and radiating almost tangible irritation. Grace’s body releases a tension she didn’t even know she’d been holding. 

Dani’s eyes jump back to Grace’s face, and her expression softens a little. “Your face.” Grace reaches her good hand up to where she’d found wet blood earlier and her fingers come away tacky. 

“Your arm.” Grace nods in the direction of Dani’s ruined sleeve. 

Dani looks at it. “Just needs to be cleaned and wrapped.” 

“Let me.” Grace crosses the safehouse in less than two strides to pull out the first aid kit and a cot—

And drops the kit, hissing, when the weight of the kit puts too much pressure on her injured hand. 

Dani smiles wryly. “Let’s take this one step at a time.” 

They set up two cots, and sit facing each other, the kit to Dani’s left. Dani examines Grace’s hand first, favoring her burned arm. 

Three functioning hands and three functioning arms between them—and different hands and arms, too. What a pair they make. 

Grace’s hand’s not as torn up as it was for Augmentation, but that’s maybe not saying much. There’s deep gouges that haven’t stopped leaking yet, exposed armor mesh clearly visible through the skin. There’s more than one moment where Dani has to stop cleaning and suturing and tweeze a shard of metal out of a wound. And there’s several burned spots where Grace’s human flesh made contact with hot, electrified metal. Some parts can be safely cut or scraped away. The rest is irrigated, sterilized, sewn shut if it needs to be, and ointment applied. 

Grace suppresses her reaction to the pain of the cleaning, after her initial reaction to carelessly grabbing the kit. Partly because she’s prepared for it now, and she’s had more and worse done without anesthesia. The kit caught her off guard. Partly because she knows the lecture that’s waiting if she complains at all. 

Dani mostly works in silence. Grace wishes she had some moonshine, at least. But the dose Dani gave her while she was out makes it a little more bearable. 

And the hum of Dani’s heartbeat so close by, slowing back down but still oddly elevated, calls up that same warmth from earlier, settles her—even as it does something funny to her own heart rate. And even in the chill, with their sweat-dampened clothes, Dani’s core temperature is steady, higher than normal even, a faint glow available to her enhanced eyes, overlaying the visible-light spectrum image coming from her brain. 

“There.” Dani says an indeterminate amount of time later, laying the tools aside. “Don’t put your hand through a live circuit board next time.” 

Grace flexes her hand gently. It hurts, but it feels much steadier. She grins. “Think they’ll give me a sticker for taking out an HK with one hand?” Dani smacks her arm, shaking her head. “Your turn.” Grace says before Dani can move on to her face. “Take off your jacket.” One corner of Dani’s mouth twitches, but she unbuttons the remaining buttons of her top layer and removes it slowly, one arm at a time, hissing as she guides it over the burn. That leaves her in her BDUs and undershirt and boots. Grace leans in to get a look at the burn. 

She winces at the sight of it. It’s not the worst thing she’s ever seen, but it’s not pretty, either: A burned streak dipping into the mass of Dani’s upper arm, angry and leaking sluggishly. And Dani doesn’t have any kind of accelerated healing. 

With her hand bandaged, helping Dani is much more manageable. Dani’s right; it mostly just needs to be cleaned and wrapped. So she cleans the wound, acutely aware as she does so that Dani is watching, oddly impassive. 

She hasn’t applied a bandage to anyone else in a long time, she realizes. Not in the field, at least. Usually she’s the one dragging people out of the fire, getting between them and danger, and then she’s the one getting patched up; stitched, stapled, injected, wrapped. Bandaged up and told to sleep off an injury that would bench anyone else for weeks and then sent back out. She’s a weapon; maybe they call her a defensive weapon, but she’s still a weapon. Point and shoot. Put her between them and danger because she can survive it. 

But it makes her hands feel clumsy, even though she knows the motion so well she could do this in her sleep. 

They didn’t make her for this.

And it feels a little like a failure, too. Grace is supposed to be the one saving Dani, even—especially?—at a cost to herself. And even though it’s been awhile since she’s seen Dani active in a firefight—certain ambushes notwithstanding—her demeanor is calm and unruffled, same as when she was dealing with Grace’s new Augmentations, coordinating with base doctors, training her. 

Grace remembers one grey day, a lifetime ago now; a silhouette, moving whip-fast. A rifle slung over her shoulder. Something burning in her eyes, cutting through the haze like the sun they’d lost on Judgement Day. 

She’d wanted to be so badly to be at _that_ Dani’s side. Dani, inscrutable and seemingly invincible, as much as anyone could be to someone like Grace, always half a step ahead of everything. And of course things have changed since then. Now, she sees the scars and the lines on Dani’s face, and she’s excruciatingly aware of how not-invincible Dani is. _That_ Dani hadn’t really ever existed. 

But suddenly she remembers why she thought she did, once upon a time. 

Dani has other scars, of course. They all do. Scars and worse. Grace tries to focus on that, and not on the fact that this is the most stripped-down she’s seen Dani get in years, or the fact that Grace could recognize her at a distance just by the cut of her figure, but without her jacket on, being so close to Dani hits her almost as hard as the HK. It’s hard to be aware of anything else. The line down to her waist, the way her undershirt clings to her form, the swell of her breasts. She could follow it with her hands. Knows how warm the curve of Dani’s waist would feel, how it might rest in the palm of her hand, how her thumb might trace up and down the precious skin under that shirt. There’s blood and grit on her face, her body is scarred and hardened, and even to Grace’s normal, visible-spectrum eyes, there’s a light about her. 

She hopes it comes off as just her being careful with her Augmented strength. And she is being careful; her hand could almost wrap around Dani’s upper arm. That makes her feel clumsy. Too big, too strong, too indelicate. Which, considering the day’s events, Dani’s outward calm right now, is a little bit laughable. 

But her hands know that Dani is precious, too. And she can’t quite keep that knowledge out of her touch. 

Since “not thinking about it” isn’t working as a strategy, she tries a different one. 

“Where’d you get that one?” She nods in the direction of a scar at the joint of her shoulder. Vaguely, she remembers seeing it before, angrier and more defined, not long after she first joined up. When they were still a ragtag band, unaffiliated with any of the more powerful militias. But she’d never had a chance to ask, and she’d forgotten it was there, eventually. At the time, it had left an impression, even with the kinds of scars she’d seen on various scavengers—not to mention the brands, tattoos, lesions, tumors. Years later, she can identify it more or less by sight: A stab wound. A deep one, to look like that after this long. Not a narrow blade, either. 

“A Terminator.” Dani says. Grace feels her eyebrows rise toward her hairline. 

“You had that when I joined.” 

Dani nods. “It was a prototype. Almost killed me and my mentor.” Dani doesn’t bring her up often—hasn’t since Grace enlisted, really, she realizes; so many things have stopped since Grace became a soldier—but her voice gets softer whenever she does. But Grace remembers Dani talking about the person who taught her how to fight, how to resist. 

It used to irritate her, before she ever understood what that jealousy was or meant. It still makes something uncomfortable gnaw in the pit of her stomach. But it feels more like disappointment now than anything. 

And perversely, Grace understands. 

“You’ve been on their radar awhile.” She observes.

Dani laughs at that, for some reason, short and bitter. “Yes.” She’s silent for a long moment. “It was after my mentor, though. Sarah.” 

It’s funny how her bones themselves can hurt when they aren’t really there anymore, radiating out of the space they used to lie like her body still remembers them. How the space at the center of her limbs, even though it’s filled solid, echoes with the burn of the new metal, like it never really stopped. And how her muscles will start to seize up and spasm around her new bones from time to time, like they know what they’ve been attached to isn’t quite right. Even when it doesn’t hurt, it’s disorienting sometimes, like someone ripped something out of the core of her and she’s still walking around but there’s a piece missing, and she doesn’t know why or how she’s still here. She doesn’t really remember what it was like, not being this, but she knows it was different, once. 

It’s funny how something as insubstantial as a name, and the way Dani says it, can hurt even through all that. 

“One hell of a mentor.” Grace says with a wry smile, tying off the wrap. Trying to stay professional. 

That gets the reaction she was hoping for: Dani’s expression softens, and she smiles a little. “Yes. She was.” 

“You’re gonna have a good scar.” Grace comments as she puts away the gauze, like Dani is fresh meat getting their first major patch-up. 

Dani’s lips twitch. “I’m sure the ladies will love it.” She says dryly, looking over Grace’s work. Grace nearly chokes on air. 

She played herself. 

//

In the miserable chill of the bunker, Grace and Dani huddle around the heat lamp and eat, mostly silently. The light the lantern casts is poor quality, murky and vaguely golden, giving the probably sandy concrete walls a coppery-greenish tinge. It’s a testament to how cold the room is that the difference it makes is perceptible, even to Grace. The air is still except for the faint whisper of the air system, and the concrete at once soaks up the sound and boxes it in tight. It’s clear just how far down they are—although she knows it’s not nearly as deep as some of their bases go. 

The worst part is, they can’t get _too_ warm with the heat lamp. Stronger infrared signatures are more likely to be detected by Legion drones. They have the bedroll stashed in the hidden locker in the wall, and space blankets, not that those will do much good down here. 

They can’t sleep right away, either. At least not both of them. They have to keep watch for at least three hours, per protocol. And at this point, even Grace wouldn’t mind shutting her eyes for a little while. 

They bicker a little over who will take the three-hour watch, but Dani concedes after a little while. Grace brings up all kinds of reasonable points: _I don’t technically need to sleep more than three hours a day_ ; _I’ll have an easier time staying awake_ ; _I can detect radio signals and hear anything moving out in the corridor_. And all of that is true. She slept for maybe two hours over the course of the day before they headed out. She can—or in this case, _can’t_ —pick up any radio signals, which means nothing is broadcasting close by; and she doesn’t hear any movement in the tunnel outside. 

But as Dani wraps herself in the bedroll and one of the space blankets and turns on the cot to face away from the heat lamp, Grace has to admit, at least to herself, that that’s got nothing to do with the ball of fierce warmth that settles in her chest. Or the fact that her Augmentations are honing in on Dani’s heart rate, her body temperature; a steady beat that Grace tucks away behind her armored ribs, that pricks her adrenaline just enough to put her on alert, ready to step between Dani’s sleeping form and anything that comes through the door. A warm halo under her skin. 

This is right. 

//

Two hours into her watch, Grace is _warm_. There’s a flush rising up her whole body, heat under her skin. The cold, close air, which threatened to seep into her bones and chill her from the inside out, feels almost like a relief now. 

And she’s sweating. A lot. Especially for just sitting there. 

It started subtle. And she thought maybe—maybe she was just stressed. Small closed spaces tended to mean safety for her when she was on her own. And with the Resistance, they mean that too, usually. 

But they’re back behind enemy lines, now. They’re waiting to see if Legion finds them. And _waiting_ in a space this small starts to make it feel less like a “safehouse” and more like a coffin. 

And then she thought maybe it was the stimulant she’d taken—low-dose, it can keep her alert longer and help prolong the effectiveness of her meds, and right now, they need all the help they can get. High-dose, and she risks burning through them faster than she already is. Either way, they tend to make her flushed. A little sweaty. Especially if she’s stressed, like she has reason to be. 

But things just kept climbing from there. 

It’s almost unbearable, now. The sleeveless tops that everyone thinks are for show are actually for ventilation; but Grace is sweating in it like she’s in a full formal uniform made of wool. It feels about as scratchy, too. And she’s not sure if it’s because of the discomfort or something else, but she can’t sit still, either; she’s up, pacing around the room, when normally if she was pacing, it’d be to stay awake. 

She undoes her vest and her top, and puts them aside. Dani won’t be awake for another hour, at least; she sleeps like the dead, and she’s exhausted. 

Even if she does, she’s one of the more sympathetic commanders to what Augments go through. 

Grace leans against the wall, palms flat, letting her head drop forward between her shoulders. She breathes deep. The wall is cool against her skin, soaking up the excess heat. She lets her breath out in a shaky sigh, leans forward onto her arms, a longer strip of cement to sink her body heat into. 

Something is wrong. 

Fine, there’s nothing _right_ or natural about the way Grace’s body works. But there’s also a range of “normal” for it. 

This isn’t it. 

She’s turning before she realizes exactly what she’s turning towards—the sound of Dani stirring on the cot, the uptick in her heartbeat, the rustle of her clothes. Grace has her back pressed against the wall—oh, that’s even better than hands and forearms—looking at Dani when Dani’s eyes are still more closed than open. Dani’s face scrunches, like there’s an unpleasant smell. “Jesus— Grace?” Her head comes up and her eyes are clear, a little wide even. 

Grace doesn’t have any words. Doesn’t know how to feel. In another situation, she might’ve panicked; this is kind of a worst-case scenario, for another her. A her that isn’t in this situation right now. Caught. Caught, shirt off, flushed, restless, unable to even sit down. All of it inexplicable. But the words are just gone anyways. Dani’s gaze is the only thing she can think about, her eyes turned almost black in the heat lamp's, pinning Grace to the spot, sending electricity coursing through her veins, questioning look plain on her face, eyes searching Grace’s. Awake, but not quite Commander Ramos yet. 

She sees Dani in so many dimensions, all at once. The visible-light spectrum of gold and black and coppery-green and shades in between. The slow-churning shift of body heat, radiating through her limbs, starting low and cool and growing brighter as she rouses out of sleep. The tick of her heartbeat, jumping with worry but steady, strong. 

_Dani_ , she thinks. No, she _feels_. No. 

“Grace?” 

Grace remembers her words. “Dani.” Then the deluge hits her— “Dani, I don’t know what’s happening, I—“ 

After all, Dani’s one of the few people she trusts to give her her shots when she can’t. 

Dani’s on the edge of the cot in a heartbeat, one arm half-extended in a soothing gesture. Grace stops as suddenly as she started, gulps, heart hammering wildly. Her legs feel oddly shaky, like they want to run. She suddenly, viscerally remembers her skittish teenage self, sticking to the shadows, back to the wall, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice, at the slightest hint something was off. 

Dani’s expression has softened into something less confused and more gentle, more watchful and intent, and that makes something inside Grace tremble, too, because this is it. This is the look she’s been craving. 

“It’s okay.” Dani says, and it’s meaningless, in a way, because nothing has ever been okay. Not since long before Dani found her. Stuff like that is just soothing noise. 

But when Dani says it, Grace believes it. 

And sure enough, her body relaxes at those words, in a way she hasn’t been able to manage on her own this whole time. Grace nods. Re-settles herself against the wall slightly, more cool concrete against her back. 

“Can I come closer?” Dani seems to understand just how precarious Grace feels. 

Grace swallows. The suggestion makes her body tighten all over, and she doesn’t know what it’ll do if Dani actually comes _closer_ , radiant and bandaged and just… _everything_. She doesn’t know if she can hide her reaction when she’s… whatever she is right now. 

But she nods anyways. Dani nods in acknowledgment. Stands, slowly. Moves closer. 

When she stops, the woman standing in front of Grace isn’t Commander Ramos. There’s a feeling of understanding, vindication—

Grace sees a flicker of movement so subtle that if she wasn’t attuned to the slightest shift in Dani’s body, she’d never have seen it: A tensing in her jaw, a flare of her nostrils. Just a fraction of a second. 

She’s dreaming. This has to be one of those stupid dreams. 

But this isn’t, and she knows it. Whatever Dani finds, it makes the intent on her face turn into something almost like wonder, makes her reach up towards Grace’s cheek. Grace flinches slightly, because just that movement towards her cinches up the tension in her body again, and she’s trying to mute whatever might show on her face, in her body. 

It makes Dani stop, and Grace regrets it instantly, but doesn’t know how to voice that. 

“Grace, what…” She shakes her head. “What’s happening? How _long_ has this been happening?” 

“I don’t know.” Grace repeats. “I don’t know what this is. I thought I was burning through my meds too fast, and just… having weird dreams or something.” 

Dani’s gaze sharpens again at “weird dreams”. “What do you mean?” 

Grace explains as best she can. The process seems to help calm her slightly, but it doesn’t make sense of what’s happening. It’s all just a collection of facts. And as she gets calmer, certain other things get… more. 

And Dani listens. 

Eventually, Grace slides down the wall into a sitting position, tired of holding herself up. Dani sits next to her, almost close enough that their knees are brushing—but not quite. 

Finally, Dani asks, “Can I touch your knee?” Hand half-extended. Grace nods. 

It’s a circuit closing. That’s exactly what it is. Without even meaning to, Grace scoots forward, until they’re almost side-by-side, a foot at most between their faces. Dani’s hand, left hovering in midair, moves towards Grace’s cheek. Grace can see the flush on Dani’s cheeks in the low light, make out the thin rim of her iris and the soft slackness of her lips. Her pulse is racing, too. 

Grace needs to see if she’ll close the gap. 

She does. Dani’s hand cups her cheek, and all of this, all of it has been worth it. The embarrassment, the confusion, the uncertainty. The fear, even. 

Dani’s hand pivots, catching Grace’s jaw between her thumb and her other four fingers and pushing her head back slightly. Grace’s eyes fall shut, and she lets Dani look at her. Grace’s whole world turns around Dani’s wrist, dizzy glittering black in her head. 

“Your blood.” Dani says. Her hand pivots back, knuckles warm and soothing against Grace’s heated skin. “It’s your blood. The alpherone and omegen and the steroids. There’s three different kinds of suppressants in your meds to prevent a reaction, but… it didn’t work. You’ve probably been climbing for months. Oh, Grace.” 

Hearing her name pulls her eyes open, and she finds Dani watching her, eyes wide with a kind of soft amazement, and her voice is almost like she’s talking to herself, like something makes sense that didn’t before. Grace is beyond caring, can’t hold onto the words; not when Dani is this close. Not when she’s touching Grace’s cheek, the pads of her fingers cracklingly keen, and Grace could swear she feels every ridge of them, wants Dani to leave her fingerprints, her pattern all over her skin. Not when she’s so close to the soft skin of Dani’s wrist, the echo of her scent there. All that matters is that Dani is touching her. She turns her face towards the inside of Dani’s palm and mouths a kiss into it, the world beyond Dani blurring and going on mute, too far gone to think about why that might be a bad idea. 

She has a visceral memory of a moment a long time ago, another moment when something about Grace gave Dani pause like this. Like she knew something about what that meant that Grace didn’t, it had a weight for her out of proportion to what it held for Grace. 

Just like then, she has no idea why, or what meaning Dani draws from it. Unlike then, she can’t hold any of it in her head. It floats along the top of the current. One of her hands comes up to cup Dani’s, guide and press her wrist to Grace’s lips. Her skin is warm, almost as warm as she feels, and Grace catches the scent of her, just a hint through the pores there, and feels like she might pitch forward from the head rush that hits her and fall right into Dani. 

Dani’s hand moves, up and back and back, slipping out of her grasp, and Grace’s brain is so scrambled that it catches her by surprise. Then, she feels Dani’s hand sliding into her hair—and then her hand is tightening on a fistful of Grace’s hair. Heat and tiny shivers explode out from Grace’s scalp, whatever thin window between reason and *This is happening now* was left shattering, raining down the skin of her neck and her back like thousands of tiny sharp edges. Grace goes still, stone-still, her hand that was on Dani’s arm dropping nervelessly to her side, obedient—this is still _Dani_ , after all. And she _wants_ —

She just _wants_. And she wants Dani. And Dani is pulling her _hair_ , like she expects something from Grace, tugging her head back. Grace’s neck stretches, liquid. It’s important that she does, that she shows Dani this. 

“Fuck, Grace.” More words. These, Grace understands better; not the words themselves, but the heat in them, thick and choking on feeling. Then, “I always thought… I thought it was me. Somehow. I thought I fell apart, and… But it was this. Did you even want me?” 

Grace has no idea what any of Dani’s statements mean, why the past tense. There’s nothing _past_ about what she feels for Dani. “I always want you.” Grace finds her voice. It comes out strange and strained to her ears. And just like that, the secret she’s been holding inside her for the past however many years pops out of her mouth—and she barely registers it, she’s so far gone. “Fuck, Dani, what’s happening to me?” Something clicks. “Is this…?” Her eyes slit open to try to read Dani’s face, look for reassurance, confirmation—anything. She can hardly manage to hold her eyes open. 

Dani’s gaze back at her is aching and empathetic and a little sad. “It’s heat. Or… something. I can’t tell, your scent—it’s all mixed up.” Dani’s look is as conflicted as her voice. 

Scent. The one thing they didn’t bother fixing for her. Because it didn’t matter. Not for fighting Terminators. And not for a beta.

But that’s only a close second to the real revelation. “You’re…” 

“Safe.” Dani replies, almost automatically. The softness and certainty is back in her voice. “I’m safe.” Her grip in Grace’s hair eases and her fingers uncurl, turning to lightly rubbing Grace’s scalp, tugging gently on her hair every so often. Grace feels the bizarre twin sensations of utter comfort and electric arousal pouring down her nerves, unstringing her muscles, ending in another pulse of heat and wet between her legs. 

It’s about as non-sexual of a framing as Dani could make it. But it cuts down to the bone, down to the heart of her, fast as the lightning that surges through her circuits. Down to the day when she knew, somehow, that she was safe again. 

“Please.” Grace doesn’t know what she’s asking for, entirely. 

“Do I help?” Grace doesn’t understand why Dani thinks it’s possible for her not to. 

“You’re the only thing that helps.” And what’s pulling her so far down, but as long as Dani is _there_ , it’s okay. She’ll make it better, just by being there. Grace knows it. 

Dani’s hand loosens even more in Grace’s hair, slides out of it. Grace bites her lip at the loss. Dani’s gaze searches hers, and Grace holds it, unable to look away. 

Dani’s hand strokes her cheek, cups it. “Oh, _querida_. What did we do to you?” 

_Not enough_ , part of her suggests. The rest of her just quivers. 

“Come here.” That hand curves around the back of Grace’s head again and tugs her all the way in. 

Dani’s lips are warm, even against Grace’s overheated ones. There’s a beat where her brain catches up—and then Grace makes a sound into the kiss as it hits her, clutches at whatever part of Dani she can reach. When Dani’s hand slides down to the back of her neck, whatever higher brain function she had left shorts out, leaving her mind a blank white slate, hyperattuned to wherever Dani’s hand might direct her. 

Dani breaks off the kiss to pull her into an even closer embrace, arms around Grace’s back. Grace wraps her arms around Dani and buries her face against the side of her neck, and— 

Well. She thought she was under before. 

Scent at this distance is like a key sliding into place and turning. She wants to drown herself in Dani. Grace turns her face in towards Dani’s neck, opening her mouth. Tastes sweat and grit and smoke. Dani’s inhale is audibly shaky, in through her mouth. It has her caught between continuing there, finding out just what sounds she can wring out of Dani with her mouth on that spot, and moving down Dani’s body and stripping off her clothes and _tasting_ her. 

But not even Dani’s scent and the way she moves and feels and sounds can drown out the feeling between her legs, so far beyond an ache Grace doesn’t have a word for it. 

It’d be embarrassing, if she could muster up a single shred of self-consciousness. Her body feels almost alien in how intense its response is, the level it’s humming at. How does anyone live with this? 

She feels Dani’s hand at her fly and all thoughts of making Dani fall apart evaporate. A tremor runs through her core. She straightens her leg and brings one hand in to help. 

Dani’s hand slides right home, to where the ache is the strongest, just like she can feel it herself, and Grace finds herself starting to collapse onto her back on the floor without even meaning to. She arches up, barely coordinated enough to push her pants down with Dani’s fingers on her. She doesn’t know what’s normal for someone like Dani, but she had no idea she could get this wet without even being touched.

Dani rises up over her, hands and knees, hungry-eyed. Grace’s core tenses, tightens, flutters. Her body aches around Dani, and Dani is the only thing that soothes it. 

Dani slows, pauses. Grace’s eyes blink open to find Dani looking somewhere past the top of Grace’s head, face intent and thoughtful. Her head turns back to the bed. 

“Hold on.” She gets up, leaving Grace with one last dizzying kiss while she grabs something from the locker. 

She doesn’t come right back to Grace. Instead, she snags the bedroll she was just sleeping under on her way back, and tosses it on the floor, more or less straight. Grace understands and moves, stripping off what’s left of her clothes as she goes. 

She spies the container in Dani’s hand and her mouth goes dry. Guess they’re going right for it. 

But it’s exactly the kind of overwhelming, might-actually-be-too-much stimulation she’s been needing this whole time. 

With a better angle, unencumbered by Grace’s clothes, Dani’s touch finds that spot inside her that’s aching, and Grace hears herself cry out, feels herself twist, arch, push into the touch. She loses track of time, loses track of everything but Dani, because the rhythm of her hand is the only thing that matters, the slide of her knuckles, the press of her fingertips, the solid stopping presence of the rest of her hand. Sweat prickles out all over her body, and her skin almost hums with the pleasure of it. She forgets everything: The container, the bunker, who they’re hiding from, even. 

Dani’s hand slows, and Grace pushes urgently, almost opens her eyes to say something—though she doesn’t know what she’d say—when Dani adds a third finger. 

Then, Grace remembers. And swears, spreading her legs. When Dani pauses again, she doesn’t get impatient. A fourth finger joins the other three. Grace arches, lets her chin tilt up. 

Finally, Dani’s hand leaves her entirely, and Grace feels the loss keenly. But it comes back from that, too, slick with something thicker, cool inside her. 

As Dani works up from there, Grace moves her hands to the concrete floor, mindful that this is the only bedroll they have. The concrete is rough, cold; a little piece of sanity. She curls her fingers against it. 

Dani’s free hand grabs one of them and moves it back. “Don’t hurt yourself.” 

The odd warmth that fills her at that hits her at the same time Dani starts to add her thumb, and Grace’s chest feels like it might burst, feels like she might be floating, Dani with half her hand inside her, watching over her. 

Her breath cuts short and ragged when that slips inside. “Breathe.” 

Grace manages to, barely. Dani’s knuckles stretch her far enough to burn, a little. Grace relaxes the rest of the way. This, she understands. 

And then Dani is all the way in. Cutting her breath short again, turning all her thoughts, everything else, to smoke. Dani’s hand moves inside her, and a strangled groan crawls out of her chest. 

Of course she’s _done_ this before. But nothing could prepare her for this. What it’s like with Dani inside her. Feeling Grace’s body around her as she curls her fingers. Taking _everything_ up. Just like she should be. 

It almost doesn’t feel real. With the absolute maelstrom of overstimulation the climb up here has been—it seems impossible that it could suddenly go so _quiet_.

Dani swears. The words light on her chest, opened up for Dani just like the rest of her. The only time Grace could be wrapped around her but Dani is the one protecting her. 

Dani takes her through it, slow motion by motion. Everything she does touches something. And that stillness, that fullness, gives way to something else again. 

Grace comes hard enough that she’s asking even while she’s still feeling the ripples of it, barely starting to come down, stumbling over her words. “Are you— Did I hurt you—?” 

“No.” Dani’s voice is low, calm. 

Carefully, Dani extricates herself, and her face appears over Grace’s. Something’s quieted there, too. She leans down and kisses her properly, and for the moment, Grace is sober enough to appreciate it fully. She never needed that to want Dani anyways. Her hands find Dani’s waist, slide under her shirt, map the shape of her: dip of her waist, flat against her stomach, into the curve of her lower back and up, her arms wrapping around. Slowly, Dani comes to rest against her. Grace tightens her arms slightly, the momentary satisfaction of having some part of her all the way around Dani’s body getting the better of her. The urge to wrap around her and protect her. 

It’s ingrained, at this point. 

“You’re wearing too many clothes.” Grace rumbles when they pull apart for a moment. 

Dani raises an eyebrow. “Am I?” 

“Mhm.” Grace is too dopey to be embarrassed. It gets a small smile out of Dani, too. She pushes up and sits back, straddling Grace, looking at her consideringly. Not taking her shirt off yet. Hesitating, for some reason. 

Grace follows her up, as far as she can. Fiddles with the hem of her shirt. Slips her thumb between the skin of her hip and the waistband of her BDUs. 

“I could help.” She offers. Dani’s smile widens. 

“Thanks, but I’m pretty sure you tore your pants when you took them off.” 

“Shit. Really?” She looks over at the crumpled heap of clothes near them. Unsurprisingly, she can’t tell. 

Dani nods. 

“You don’t have to take anything off.” Grace offers. She’d be lying if she said she doesn’t feel at least a little pang when she says it, but she means it. Dani considers her again. 

“Come here.” 

Grace comes. 

Dani kisses her again, and when she lets Grace’s hands wander under her shirt, Grace guesses what the game is. She wraps one arm around Dani’s waist, pulling her close. Her palm comes to rest on the edge of a patch of smooth skin on her side. A scar, probably. The other hand slides up to cup one breast, tracing her thumb around the nipple and feeling it harden. Dani’s body heats, and she deepens the kiss, deepens her breathing, hand sliding into Grace’s hair. 

Just touching her like this is more than Grace thought she’d ever get in her entire life. Dani’s heartbeat rising under her hand, the skin under her fingertips so warm and soft. The moment she realizes Dani is rocking against her has her pulling Dani’s hips even closer, trying to give her purchase. 

Finally, Dani’s hands drop to the hem of her undershirt again, and Grace moves back enough to allow her to pull it over her head. 

And Grace doesn’t _mean_ to stop and stare. That was kind of the point of what they were just doing. Let Dani not have to think about what Grace was seeing. But she can’t _not_ look. 

She has, mostly, managed to avoid thinking about everything outside of what they’re doing together right now—pretty much effortlessly. The difference in rank, Dani’s position. It helps that Dani still doesn’t seem like Commander Ramos right now. But she doesn't need to be; before she was that, she was already so much more. She was their light in the darkness. She brought Grace home with just a word. Took her name out of the rubble of Judgement Day and reminded her that people held it on their tongue with love, once, and like so much else, the humanity and beauty of it wasn’t lost. Not as long as they were there to make sure it wasn’t forgotten.

And she still is; she still does. Scarred and wiry and maybe not as toned as one of the rank-and-file anymore, but Grace can’t look away. Doesn’t ever want to. Her hands feel clumsy, like earlier with the bandage. 

This is everything that saves her. 

She catches Dani’s expression, finally, soft and a little wry. She reaches up and runs her fingers along Grace’s jaw. “Thank you.” 

Grace makes a strangled noise of surprise. “You’re thanking _me_.” 

Dani nods. “For that look?” She smiles briefly, nods again. 

Grace’s arm tightens around her. “I can do that as long as you want.” 

Dani’s smile widens. “Better idea.” She leans in and kisses Grace. 

Grace returns the kiss fiercely. Moves her hand that’s not around Dani’s waist to the button of her pants, undoing it—extra careful not to accidentally pop the threads holding it in place with her thumb. Slips her hand inside. Dani kisses her harder, rising up fractionally, breath shivering. 

Dani makes a sound into the kiss when Grace’s fingers find her, and Grace hears the blood roaring in her own ears. Keeps her touch slow and deliberate. Explores. 

“Can I put you on your back?” Grace asks when they’ve found a rhythm and she can feel a shiver in Dani’s legs at a certain point when Dani presses forward. 

Dani nods. Grace slips her hand out of Dani’s pants, slides her other arm down, just under Dani’s ass, and sits up fully, lifting as she does. 

It’s not _completely_ effortless, pushing up and turning around, but it’s worth it for the way Dani’s legs wrap around her like she knows exactly what Grace intends, and she trusts her completely to pull it off. It has occurred to her that this might not be the first time she’s done this with an Augment, but that doesn’t really matter anymore, because she’s doing this with Grace now. 

And she’s been with people who kink on her Augmented strength, and with people who didn’t _like_ that she was Augmented, necessarily, but knew she was what they were looking for in a fuck because of it: Athletic, attuned, intense. Were okay with her uncanny body and how she used it—once, twice, maybe three times. Everyone she’s been with has wanted a piece of that, on some level—but no one wants anything long-term with something that’s half-Terminator. And even people who get off on fucking a robot have expectations that don’t really match the reality of how Grace works. They don’t know what she was made for. 

Dani’s reaction doesn’t feel like any of those, though; it feels like _knowing_. 

And somehow, that frees her. Frees her hands to pull Dani close, to hold her the way she knows she can, but might not otherwise, even with someone who wants her cyborg side. And it turns her hands and her body from repurposed death machines, ones that she steals every little moment of pleasure and life from, instruments that she uses “not as intended”, into—

Grace never figured she was “made” for anything other than war, when she came out the other side of their assembly line. It made the human parts unavoidable in their own painful way. It made the stolen moments of it sharper, vindicating. Just like in a fight, she was at the eye of the storm, the place where it all came together. They could part her out and put her back together, but she _made_ it come alive. _There is no fate but what we make for ourselves._ Right? 

Her memories play back, zoomed-out, away from herself, for once. She sees Dani’s facility with Grace’s Augmentations, and the other Augments Grace watched serve under her. Her comfort, her familiarity. Like she knows what Grace and the other Augments are thinking, even with their obvious differences in physical capability. 

Grace moves in a way she didn’t think was possible, didn’t _know_ was possible—because Dani lets her. Like she knew Grace could, even if Grace didn’t know it herself. 

Grace’s hands don’t feel so clumsy now. 

Maybe she was made for something after all. 

Dani reaches down between her legs to where Grace’s hand just was. Grace watches, not sure what’s happening but entirely sure she’s into it. After a moment, Dani brings her hand back up, fingers slick, and lays them against Grace’s mouth. 

Oh. 

Grace’s vision does something strange as she catches Dani’s scent so close to her face. Her brain turns to static, the heat or rut or whatever she’s going through returning full force, the kind of down-on-her knees want she’s so familiar with but _more_ , surging through her like a physical pull. She parts her lips and opens her mouth without thinking.

Dani slides her fingers into Grace’s mouth, and Grace’s vision goes kind of funny again for a few heartbeats as she tastes Dani on Dani’s fingers. When Dani withdraws, Grace breaks away and slides down between Dani’s legs, settling them over her shoulders. She runs her tongue through the folds there slowly, thoroughly, gives Dani the full weight of her mouth, gauging her reaction. When Dani’s breath hitches and her heels dig in, Grace settles in. 

If she could think, she’d probably be paralyzed by the fact that this is Dani her mouth is on, she’s doing this with _Dani_. But there’s nothing else. Just the spread of her hands over the soft skin of Dani’s thighs and her tongue pressing and sliding up and down and licking at Dani’s swollen entrance. Something inside her seizes on every little shiver and intake of breath; chases it. Dani’s fingers are in her hair, sending shivers down her spine, holding her in place, making sure that even if she wasn’t half-out of her mind, she wouldn’t dream of moving anywhere else. Mouth right up against the beating heart of her. She adds a finger, then two, and Dani is trembling on the edge and clutching at her fingers. Everything narrows down. The pulse against her tongue and flutter around her fingers makes her _ache_.

With her good hand buried to the knuckles, Grace slides her injured hand carefully under her own hip and works a not-painful pad of one finger fast and rough against her clit. Within seconds, she’s coming again, shaking and moaning against Dani, scratched and bruised and undone for her. Above her, Dani swears, and she’s not sure if it’s her orgasm or the fact that she can tell Grace is coming, too. 

She could live here. 

Dani wants her back up at her mouth, though, so Grace complies. Dani’s hand, gentle at the back of her neck now, has her feeling weak. 

She ends up at Dani’s neck, mouths against it gently, scrapes her teeth. “This okay?” She rasps. She remembers Dani’s reaction earlier, but she doesn’t know what it means. If it’s what she feels, her and her other partners, or if it’s something else.

Dani’s hands tighten and a shiver runs through her. “ _Yes._ ” 

That’s all she needs to dive back in, and the reaction is everything she hoped for and more. Dani’s legs tighten on her sides til someone who wasn’t Augmented might’ve found it painful. Dani is messy-wet around her fingers, tight but so wet that Grace’s fingers with their inhumanly weighted cores slide easily without any clinging or friction, slick noticeably working its way between her unoccupied fingers and even down into her palm. The throat under her mouth vibrates with a moan, shudders and stretches with her gasps, goes taut with the arch of her back, pressing up into Grace. And her _hands_. Her nails bite hard into the back of Grace’s neck—clutch, flex, resettle, scratch—and Grace is fiercely glad of the corded steel of her body, because it means Dani doesn’t hold back, and the strength of her grip stings even someone like Grace. 

Dani is so far gone, and it’s wonderful. Grace realizes that whatever scratches she leaves will last a day at most, no matter how deep, and it’s so unfair part of her almost wants to cry. 

She settles her thumb so that it rides sloppily against Dani’s clit, kisses a bruise into the side of Dani’s neck, teeth and tongue working, and there’s a few moments of Dani’s tense, harsh breathing before she _breaks_ , shuddering, and Grace’s Augmented weight has never felt so right. 

Grace pulls back, slightly, but when the aftershocks have started to slow and her fingers find a spot that makes Dani clench again—

Dani scores a long stripe down Grace’s back that time. She’ll take it. And wear it as long as she can. 

Grace doesn’t know what she expected to happen—maybe something like before, where they have a moment to breathe. 

But Dani comes out of that orgasm with her eyes flashing, hand on Grace’s chest pushing her back. Grace sees the already-darkening mark on her neck—a mass of several of them, more like—and the sight goes through her like lightning. 

“On your stomach.” Grace is suddenly on her stomach, arms in front of her off the bedroll. Dani straddles her, heat and wet pressed to her back. 

She runs her fingers through Grace’s hair from the base of her skull up, pushing it up and out of the way. Leans down, a beacon of heat against her back. 

A moment later, Dani’s teeth scrape over the back of her neck, close gently around the line of her spine, and Grace could almost die on the spot, it feels that good. Not just the physical sensation either, although that hits her like nothing ever has there before. This whole time, Dani has been guiding her through this, protecting her, reading her the way she always does. But there's a tension in Dani's body that she recognizes now—from so many nights that left her wondering, but also, now she recognizes the same fathomless, roiling current she's felt throughout the night tonight. So much and so powerful she might just crack open from it. And now, Dani is right there with her, gentle, _too_ gentle, for the tremor in her hands against Grace's back, in her hair. For the rigid line of her body against Grace's, her shallow breathing, the way her heart pounds in Grace's Augmented ears, the heat pouring out of her skin. Grace shudders, stung by her body’s response to all of it, unable to do anything but feel. A weakness overwhelms her shoulders, hot-and-cold shivers. She grinds against the floor through the bedroll. 

She pushes up, stretches her neck and her shoulders out. Offering. Dani breaks off. “Fuck. Grace.” 

“Please.” Grace asks for the second time that night. All she can see is the flash in Dani’s eyes. Everything else that's happened could be reframed as a kindness; could be taken back. And Grace believes in their cause and everything she's paid for it. She doesn't need Dani to want her back for her to believe in their fight, to believe in _Dani_. Dani is already the truest thing Grace has ever known. 

But she still feels the sting of Dani's selfishness in her skin, her demand. She's going to feel it long after the marks are gone. And she _wants_ it. She wants it so bad she's almost shaking. She keeps trying to reason it away but she _can't_ —the bone-deep conviction telling her that if she opens herself up, Dani will fall like rain on her skin.

And it's not enough to leave it at this point, not when Dani's body is telling her there's _more_. She doesn't know what Dani might do, exactly, but she knows what it would be: Proof. Proof of what Grace means every time she's promised to be at Dani's side. Every drop of sweat or blood that she's shed. 

She might be fighting for "the Resistance". And her bones have a signature marking her as not her own. But Dani has a prior claim to every cell of her body. And if Dani wants it, then she wants Dani's selfishness written into her.

Dani makes a sound that burns itself into her bones. Presses her face into the space between Grace's shoulder blades.

She thought—she didn’t know. That Dani would go for her neck again. It’s an apt enough metaphor. Dani is the only person who she trusts enough to have her by the metaphorical scruff of the neck. 

But instead, Dani’s teeth close on her shoulder, just inches to one side of that neat symmetrical point.

//

Grace is _high_. 

Her body feels abused in the best way possible. Her back aches and throbs at various points. All of them are signs of a job well done. And her body is _definitely_ feeling the aftermath of having Dani’s whole fist inside her. 

Dani is draped over her back, head resting between Grace’s shoulder blades again, like she’s hiding from something. Grace is happy to let her hide there, pleased that she’s been picked. 

Still, as their bodies calm down, Grace notices a tension building in Dani’s body. Her heartbeat thrums at a particular sharp staccato that she’s very familiar with, for everything from being entangled in pedantic political squabbles to getting ready for action. Apart from her vitals, though, Dani is quiet, and getting quieter with every minute that passes. 

There’s something about the way Dani’s hand rests next to the new mark on her shoulder, too; flat, not quite touching it, almost… cradling it? Almost like she doesn’t want to touch it. But she can’t avoid it, can’t not think about it.

The silence stretches on long enough, builds thick enough, that a cold lump starts to form in Grace’s stomach. 

When the tension is palpable, Grace swallows her pride and her worry and asks. “Dani? Is everything okay?” 

Dani nods against her back, but doesn’t say anything. Her hand doesn’t budge. 

“Can you look at me?” Grace hates the way her voice sounds to her own ears in that moment, softer than she means to, vulnerable. 

It sounds all too accurate.

Dani nods again, and starts to shift off Grace’s back. Grace moves to roll onto her back—careful to stay on the bedroll, more because Dani will say something if she doesn’t. She tries to get her tight throat to loosen as Dani’s face comes into view. 

Dani looks almost somber, something distant in her eyes. There’s an old ache there, one of those things that Grace can’t always touch—but sometimes, she can be there with her through it.

And then she catches the faint shimmer in Dani’s eyelashes. 

Dani lets Grace put one hand up to her cheek. Smooth her thumb along her cheekbone, Grace's callused thumb feeling too rough for something that means this much. Dani’s eyes flutter slightly, though, and her face smoothes at the touch, some of the tension there melting away. She turns her face in towards Grace’s palm. Grace's heart races.

“What is it?” Grace finds the strength to ask after a long few moments, a little heartened by Dani’s reaction. 

Dani’s silent for a little while. Her only response is to turn her face in deeper against Grace’s hand, and to bring her own hand up to hold Grace’s in place. Grace can hear Dani’s heart rate peaking slightly, then dropping. That’s good, at least.

Finally, Dani stirs, placing a kiss against Grace’s palm before she opens her eyes. She fixes Grace with that gaze—not teary anymore. Determined. Fierce.

“I need to tell you something.” She begins.


End file.
